New Year, New Skills, New Pictures

Happy New Year!
It's our first post of 2009 and there is so much to catch up on.
We did finally get to celebrate the holidays with my family after some weather related delays. My parents, sister and niece were here for New Years and we had a lovely time. It's fun to have the 3 kids together!



The time around the holidays was slower at church and it was great to have Jeff home more. He and Casey built this snowman one evening and he lasted a few days. This time also lead to one of Casey's new favorite things - "rastle with daddy and Obie". This entails Casey running full speed at Jeff and then whatever cool wrestling move Jeff does evokes shrieks of excitement and laughter. Its even more fun when Obie joins in as I am sure you can imagine.

Sam has a second tooth today! Right next to the first. And this helps explain last night. Ugh. He seems to be past needing to eat a lot in the night but he still cannot stay asleep for long. It's different every night. Wednesday night was one of the best ever, and then there was last night with the crying and the waking and the waking and the crying. This too shall pass.
Sam's new skill in the new year is rolling - both ways now! He seems pretty pleased with himself as he goes back and forth. He continues to sit up well, although with a head that size you can't fault him for tipping right over sometimes. When he ends up on his belly this way, he is not as pleased.
Casey's new skill for 2009 is stalling. The other day he actually asked for a time out for no reason other than we had just told him it was nap time. He has used the potty a few times which is cool, but also a great stalling technique. We want him to use it and he seems to have figured out that suggesting this buys him a few minutes in the bathroom. Also due a very brief flu like virus right before Christmas, he has learned that the phrase "my tummy hurts" gets mom to drop everything and go with him to the bathroom or kitchen - anywhere without carpet really. Again, we want to take this phrase seriously but the last 10 times he has said it, nothing has happened. The bright side is that we are now quite sure that the boy is clever!


Today I took the boys for a walk in the stroller. It was a good cardio workout for me as no one has shoveled the inch of snow we got yesterday, and it was good for all of us to get a little fresh air.

Per Casey's request, our walk included a pit stop at the church to see daddy. In daddy's office Casey found this fish - and the fish has been part of everything since that moment. Here is the fish enjoying lunch with Casey.


Vocab Diaries:
Every day there is some gem I could put here, but here's one from today.
While in Jeff's office, Jeff held Casey up to see the classic "laughing Jesus" picture. I have always liked that image not only because of the laughing part but also because it is not the blond haired blue eyed Jesus we see so often. So Jeff asks Casey "Who is that?" With confidence, he responded, "Barack Obama!" Yes Casey, some people are confused about this, but let's not make Obama's job any tougher than it already is.